The Memory-Keeper
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: Regarding Dean tag: Sam needs him not just for the present, but also for their past.


_I don't really have any more full stories to post like last week's, sorry; most of the fic going up will be short ep pieces like this one. Next week I return to where I left off last year, at the end of S8._

 _And deep thanks to Jen Raeder for editing all these even with so much else on her plate. -KHK_

 **The Memory-Keeper**  
K Hanna Korossy

He was Sammy's history book, and Dean knew it.

 _"Remember that marionette theatre we went to once? Where was that, San Diego?"_

 _"It was L.A., dude. Figures you'd remember that place."_

Dad was gone, the only other consistent witness to those years, although even Dad had missed so much. Bobby was gone, the man who'd perhaps seen them more clearly than their father, but also more sparsely. Their mother—and that was still hard to wrap his head around—was back, but her memories of Sammy ended before he even took his first step or said his first word. Dean was it.

 _"Hey, isn't this the aftershave Dad used to wear?"_

 _"Aqua Velva, seriously? Dad was totally an Old Spice guy—smell it. Oh, except for when we were about go on a hunt. 'Don't want the monster to smell you coming,' remember?"_

The first time Dean had really realized that was in the year before his deal came due. With a definite expiration date coming up fast, Dean had taken stock of what Sam's needs would be on his own, and had realized there wasn't much he could provide for after he was gone. He'd socked away money and friends who promised to be there for Sam…and memories in a notebook he almost filled before the hellhound came.

He still caught glimpses of it sometimes, tucked carefully into Sam's bag, then, eventually, under his pillow in his bunker bed, threadbare with reading.

 _"Oh, man, it says the Charcoal Oven's closing. That's the place we'd go every time we were in Oklahoma City, right?"_

 _"With the neon chef guy on the front? How could I forget?"_

He'd written more while Sam was in the Cage, not thinking it would ever be read. It disappeared from Dean's room while he was out being a demon, and he'd pretended afterward he hadn't see it in Sam's.

 _"Doesn't that car remind you of Bobby's?"_

 _"Dude, have I taught you nothing? In what universe does a GTO look like a Chevelle?"_

Then a vengeful witch hit him with a memory-sucking spell.

He remembered—yeah, yeah, he got the irony—little of his trip to Amnesialand. Rowena doing her nasty thing, Sammy's sad-desperation face, and, weirdly, Scooby Doo. Flashes of uncomplicated happiness, and bone-deep panic. Sam's determination.

 _"Where do I know this symbol from?"_

 _"Uh, the BOC album? Remember Richardson?"_

It was around the third question—Sam's casual, random little probes—before he realized what his brother was doing. That he was afraid Dean's brain was still leaking, or hadn't gotten all its contents back, or was somehow different.

That all those years of memories only the two of them shared were still at risk.

He cleared his throat. "Hey."

"What?"

"We're gonna be near that place with the ribs you love—you wanna stop for dinner?"

Sam sat up a little. "We're heading up to Kansas City?"

"'Bout as long as if we go by way of Wichita, and I am so done with witches." He shook his head.

Sam's smile was small but real. "Yeah, okay. That sounds good."

"We can see if that brunette waitress is still there." Dean smirked. "She _liked_ you," he sing-songed.

Sam rolled his eyes. "You're a moron." But he was blushing a little.

From there they moved on to favorite waitresses they'd known, whether personality correlated—Sam's word—with hair color, whether Kansas or Missouri had the best barbeque, and a particularly animated argument about pork versus beef, in which Sam made a few annoyingly good points.

Sam didn't ask any more questions.

Dean would sometimes wonder if it was because he was satisfied Dean was completely back again, or because he'd realized that he was as much Dean's history book as Dean was his.

 **The End**


End file.
